Using factory fog light switch and wiring for aftermarket lights

I'm been searching and doing a lot of reading on this and it seemed pretty straight forward, but of course it's not working out...

It's a 95 and most of the posts I've found in my searches are either older (which have at least different wire colors) or newer (which have a totally different layout). The older are probably similar though.

My XJ didn't have factory fogs but the switch connector is there in the dash so I picked up a switch at a JY. But oddly there's not 12v at the connector. According to the FSM it should be brown with a white stripe and it's there, just no juice. It's my understanding that the fogs only work with the low beams so I tried measuring with lows, highs, key turned off and key turned on and any other combination I can think of. So far no 12v. According to the FSM the only fuse that seems relevant is 19 (5A) and it's there and good.

I've found the wire on the harness by the header (light blue) and it's good to the switch. So I just need to add a relay there once I can get 12v to the switch.

I could just run a new 12v source to the switch but I really wanted to keep it nice and neat and use the factory wiring.

Any ideas what I'm missing on the 12v (brown/white wire)? Is there another fuse or relay, etc, that I'm missing?

There is probably not a fuse in the fuse box for the fogs, since the factory never installed it.. Did you check the fuse? When you are in there I would also run a multimeter on ech prong of the fuse to make sure it is "hot" from the factory.

The only fuse that seems to be for the fogs as far as I can figure (according to the FSM) is number 19 and there is a fuse in there and I tested it as good.

Well you got my best guesstimate, but Why would there be a fuse in there if there was no factory fogs? did you trace the wire to see where it goes? Honestly, I would probably run the aftermarket wires back to the factory switch and run it that way. Usually aftermarket fogs run a relay on them. and all you need to do is find a ground and a hot wire. and if you keep things nice, you will never know what was done behind the panel..

It looks like a few other lights, like underhood, are run off the same fuse. I don't have an underhood either so :dunno:

It turns out that the FSM contradicts the glovebox users manual anyway as to which fuse it is. Either way mine had both fuses.

But I did figure it out, kind of. It turns out that the brown/white wire runs to the same connector as the light blue (it's under the airbox), but neither wire continues past that connector. So it looks like the br/wh gets it's 12v from some part of the harness that mine doesn't have. So I'm going to just run an acc 12v to the switch and use the light blue wire at that connector to run to the new relay I'm installing for the fogs.

Thanks!

How strong is the relay and factory wiring for the foglights for running after market lighting?

Oh ya.... I've been all threw that mess dude. I used toggles from an fsj for me heater blower, foglights and offroad lights. As long as you fuse and relay and ground everything properly you should be fine. I mounted the switches in the factory blank spaces in the dash and consealed all the wires into the factory harness bundle. Doing the extra stuff to make it nice and clean may take a little more work but it's worth it. When you look into my engine bay and under dash it still looks factory.
..... The problem i have with the foglights running off the lowbeams is that if your lowbeams go out your foglights won't work and they don't work with highbeams. so...... If your out in the woods when the go out and you have to drive home you can run your fog lights. I had that happen to me recently and it freakin sucked. So I rewired the whole system, now it works the same way as stock but with more common cense.

DeathValleyPaul said:

How strong is the relay and factory wiring for the foglights for running after market lighting?

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I only used the factory switch, not the factory relay. I just used a regular 30A automotive relay. The switch only activates the relay and doesn't see much juice. I've got a 2A fuse on the switch.

The factory fog switches are kind of confusing (at least to me). I've found that if I wire the 12v source to the center pin (brown/white wire), the relay to the "ground" pin (2 black wires) and the ground to the "other" pin (light blue wire) it works and the indicator light in the switch works too. I've got my new fogs hooked up this way as well as my elocker.